The trees were tall and thick as they pushed their way deeper into the forest. All traces of the path they had been on were gone."How are we going to keep from getting lost?" asked Carla after a while of walking.
"Don"t worry, we"re not lost yet," said Vonn, leading them while carefully keeping an eye on their surroundings.
"Vonn is used to the forest, dear. He won"t lead us astray," said Tom, patting her hand and then tripping on a root.
"Dad!" exclaimed Mikey, as everyone rushed to help him back up.
"No, I think I need to rest a bit. That tumble was a bit rough," he gasped, holding his knee where he fell.
"I could use a break myself," said Carla, taking off her bag and sitting down next to him.
"Let me look at your knee," said Gia, gently pulling the thick fabric up over his leg.
There was a rough spot where he skinned it, but it looked like the fabric saved him from a cut.
"You"ll be sore, but you"re not bleeding," she said, easing the pants leg back down.
"You would make a good healer, where ever we stop and settle down," said Tom with a gentle smile.
"I don"t know," Gia said, shaking her head.
"I think he"s right," said Vonn, sitting next to her.
"There"s so much a healer needs to know, that I don"t have a clue about. Besides, I thought you said I should cut hair?" she asked, giving him a scrutinizing look.
"I think you should do whatever you want to do," Vonn said with a smile.
Gia laughed. "That sounds like a cop-out. Afraid I"ll get mad at what you think?"
"Gia, I would never lie to you. Remember that! If you want to know what I really think, alright. I think I want you to be happy. If cutting hair makes you happy, then go for it. If you want to help people, I don"t mind talking about it. Where ever we settle down, I intend to take care of you and your family, and hopefully our family."
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She blushed and dropped the line of questioning. There was no telling where they would end up. In the ensuing silence, she noticed Mikey was missing, and almost stopped breathing.
"Where"s Mikey?" she asked, looking around and climbing to her feet.
"I"m here," he said, coming around a tree. "I found a friend!"
They all turned towards him, uneasy and apprehensive as he held out a hand and showed them a small green figure. It looked up at them with questioning eyes and then with a whir of wings, flitted away.
"What was it?" asked Tom. "I heard it fly away, but that was it."
"It was something small and green with wings," said Carla.
"It could have been a fairy or sprite," said Vonn, looking up into the trees where it had disappeared. "This is called the magical forest. There"s no telling what creatures we might encounter."
With a sigh, Tom climbed to his feet.
"This is so frustrating! I can"t see all of the amazing and wonderful things that you are all seeing, even though I"m right here!"
"I"ll tell you what it looked like!" piped up Mikey with a grin, clasping his hands together in excitement.
"You better be very descriptive!" said Tom, waving a finger in the boy"s direction.
"All right! It was as tall as my thumb!" he said, holding his hand open and staring at it, as if he could see the creature again. "It had two legs and two arms, just like a little person, but it"s clothes were more like leaves on a strawberry. Its skin was all green, so I couldn"t tell if the leaves were actually clothes, or just parts of it. And it had leaves around each ankle, like the tops of shoes."
He held out a foot, falling behind them as he stared down at his own ankle.
"And it had wings?" asked Tom.
"Oh! Yes, it had four wings! Two on each side, but they overlapped so much, it kind of only looked like one wing on each times. Then its head was about half the size of its body, and round, like a ball. The hair was kind of like leaves growing up, like a flower that had barely opened."
"That"s actually really good," said Gia, impressed with his imagery.
"I think I know what it looked like now," Tom said with a smile. "Thank you, Mikey."
"You"re welcome!" he said cheerily.
"Can anyone else hear that?" asked Vonn after a moment.
"Hear what?" asked Gia, then suddenly she heard it.
There was the faintest hint of music on the wind. They all paused to listen, and it seemed to grow stronger.
"Sounds like a flute like the street performers used to have," said Mikey.
"It does," nodded Tom.
"Should we check it out?" asked Gia, thinking about how they"d encountered so many different creatures so far.
"No, it veers off to the south and we need to keep moving east," said Vonn after a moment of thought. "Besides, anyone who"s willing to make that much noise in the forest, isn"t afraid of attracting any kind of attention."
"What does that mean?" asked Mikey.
"That means they don"t mind if monsters are attracted to them," said Carla.
The music that had been soft and enchanting seemed much more sinister now, and they picked up their pace as best they could with Tom trying not to fall over the various roots.
"Look!" cried Mikey, pointing off to the right.
A giant spider web between a low tree branch and the ground had a glowing creature struggling in it. As they drew closer, a big black spider dropped down from under some leaves and began to slink across the web towards it.
"Eww!" cried Carla, hiding behind Tom, who shook his head in confusion.
"What?" Tom cried, unable to see what she was hiding from.
"That is the biggest spider I have ever seen in my whole life!" exclaimed Mikey. "It"s as big as my whole hand!"
"Should we try to save the glowing thing?" asked Gia, looking over at Vonn.
He already had a stick in hand and was making his way over to the web. It only took a couple of moments, and the spider had retreated back up into the leaves, leaving the glowing creature alone. Vonn reached out and gently took it by the back of its dress and pulled it free of the web. They all gathered around to stare at the tiny fairy he held in his hands. She was glowing a gentle yellow, and starred right back at them in fright.
"You want to be careful with those. They can bite!" said a voice behind them.
Vonn held his hand up, and the fairy flew off quickly. Turning, Gia was shocked by what she saw. A young man, about Vonn"s age, stood without a shirt. The thing that bothered her so much, was the fact that he had the lower half of a goat.
"What are you?" asked Mikey in astonishment.
"I"m a satyr. Would you like to come to our festival tonight? There"s going to be lots of drinking and dancing?" he asked hopefully.
"Sorry," said Vonn quickly, easing an arm around Gia and pulling her behind him a hair. "We"re on our way to the elven forest, and still have a long way to go."
"The elven forest? Why do you want to go there? The elves are horribly snooty and stuck up. No fun at all!"
"It sounds like fun, to attend your festival, but we really need to be going. Could you point us in the right direction?" asked Tom, picking up on Vonn"s unease by the tone of his voice.
The satyr smiled mischievously and pointed south, towards where the music had been coming from. "Would you like for me to show you the way?"
"No, that"s fine. Thank you," said Vonn, motioning for Carla to take Tom"s arm and started moving everyone away from the figure.
He watched them with lowered eyelids, before shrugging and skipping off to the south.
"What"s wrong? Why couldn"t we go to the festival?" asked Mikey, trying to skip like the satyr had.
"The only thing those things think of, is their dancing and mating," said Vonn with a frown.
"What?" exclaimed Gia, glancing back to make sure they weren"t being followed. She didn"t think they were.
"How do you know that?" asked Tom.
"Have you met them before?" asked Carla.
"No, not before today," said Vonn with a shake to his head. "But I"ve heard stories. They will entice people who are lost, to them with their music, and then will serve lots of drinks to make them drunk. Some of the stories even say that they intentionally poison people to fall asleep from the food and drink. And then they **** everyone."
"That"s horrible!" cried Gia, picking up her pace just a little more.
"Are there girl satyrs?" asked Mikey, confusion clear on his face.
"I"m sure there are, or there wouldn"t be more satyrs," said Carla, shooting them a warning glance.
"I hope we don"t run into any more of those, then," said Gia with a shudder.